Taliban leader Mullah Omar vowed to take Kabul 'within a week' of U.S.

May 23: The Tolonews website runs a story on its front page reporting about news of the death of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar in Kabul. The Afghan Taliban rejected as 'propaganda' on Monday unsourced media reports that their reclusive leader, Mullah Omar, had been killed in Pakistan, saying he was alive and in Afghanistan and vowing to continue their insurgency. (Reuters)
Mullah Omar, the elusive, one-eyed Taliban leader who has been in hiding with a price on his head since the U.S. ousted his regime in Afghanistan, recently told confidantes his group will retake Kabul â€œin a weekâ€ once America pulls out.
The seldom seen Taliban spiritual leader, of whom only one purported photograph exists, made the pledge at a recent meeting in the badlands of southwestern Pakistan, according to a source in regular contact with a member of Mullah Omarâ€™s government-in-exile, dubbed the Quetta Shura.
Mullah Omar, who escaped his homeland in 2001 on a motorcycle as U.S. forces moved in, spoke just days before President Obama announced the U.S. plans to engage the Taliban in peace talks. On the day of that announcement, the Taliban took credit for a bombing that killed four U.S. service members at Bagram Airfield, a U.S. military base in Afghanistan.
â€œ[Mullah Omar believes] the host of Americans are a worse enemy than Americans.â€
- Taliban militant privy to Mullah Omar's plans
It is unclear if Mullah Omar remains in charge of the full Taliban, or if the group made up of exiled members of the ruling class and jihadist fighters is splintered beyond control. The source who relayed Mullah Omarâ€™s statements to FoxNews.com said the leader disavows the talks with the U.S.
Neither Mullah Omarâ€™s pledge nor word of peace talks is likely to be welcome to Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Obama made the announcement at the Group 8 summit in Northern Ireland, where he called it â€œa very early stepâ€ toward the planned exit of U.S. troops by the end of 2014. The idea of Karzai and Mullah Omar co-existing in Afghanistan is inconceivable, according to the source, himself a Taliban militant.
â€œ[Mullah Omar believes] the host of Americans are a worse enemy than Americans,â€ said the militant.
If the U.S. is seeking to engage Taliban leaders loyal to Mullah Omar, the bone of contention could be that America has him on its most wanted list, with a bounty of $10 million on his head.
Tariq Fatemi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. and a current adviser to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, said, â€œIsnâ€™t the U.S. willing to talk to the Taliban?â€ adding that he is â€œperplexedâ€ by the fact that Omar remains on Americaâ€™s hit list.
Mullah Omar, whose identity remains secretive despite his leadership role, rose to power after Afghanistan descended into chaos and civil war in the early 1990s. Seminary students armed and led by Omar fought against rampant corruption and crime, gaining the respect of Afghanistanâ€™s mujahedeen fighters.
He became the Talibanâ€™s de facto head of state in 1996, and remained there until U.S. and allied forces toppled his government in October 2001 for sheltering Usama Bin Laden following the 9/11 attacks.
He is believed to be in his 50s, and has been moving cautiously between Afghanistanâ€™s Spin Boldak district in Kandahar province and the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta in the impoverished region of Balochistan, where rebels, terrorists and refugees live together.
â€œHe is in good health and living a pious life being guarded by his trusted lieutenants,â€ said the militant who spoke to FoxNews.com.
Pakistanâ€™s foreign office in a press release welcomed the announcement of the Taliban opening an office and direct talks between U.S., and the militant group reiterating urgency to an early end to the war to re-establish peace and security. The country has been key in facilitating the negotiations by releasing detained Taliban commanders over the past several months and some, according to Pakistan officials, will be part of peace negotiations.
Pakistan, which has an uneasy alliance with the U.S., is holding at least two high-level Taliban leaders under arrest and denies the Quetta Shura is waiting out the Americans on its soil. But trust between the two nations over Pakistanâ€™s commitment to the U.S. war on terror has suffered since the 2011 raid that killed Al Qaeda boss Usama bin Laden in a compound in Abbottabad.
Fatemi just short of acknowledging Mullah Omarâ€™s presence in Pakistan said that even if he was, the U.S. would be wrong to move against him as it did Bin Laden.
â€œAre we going back to the law of the Jungle?â€ Fatemi said. â€œOnce you start breaking international law, you are setting a dangerous precedent.â€

The Kyrgyz government has penned a bill that would see the closure of the US-leased Manas air base in July next year. The country will lose $60 million for not extending the contract.

The US has maintained a presence at Manas International Airport near the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek since 2001. The base has been a key logistical transport hub for US troops in Afghanistan. In 2009, Kyrgyzstanâ€™s then-President Bakiev nearly closed the airport down, but backpedaled at the last moment after the US offered more than triple what it previously paid.

3) I don't agree interests of China and India converge in Afghanistan.

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You've misunderstood me if you've assumed I was hinting towards Indian and Chinese interest converging in Afghanistan. I was just pointing out that Taliban's interests were divergent to those of China as well as India and so US getting out of the Tajik airbase isn't good news to either India/China.
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You've misunderstood me if you've assumed I was hinting towards Indian and Chinese interest converging in Afghanistan. I was just pointing out that Taliban's interests were divergent to those of China as well as India and so US getting out of the Tajik airbase isn't good news to either India/China.
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Like I said "US pull-out is inevitable", so is Taliban gaining an upper hand (or a very possible "soft partition")

No matter how horrible Talib is, Chinese (and others) have to face the music >>> to deal with the inevitable pragmatically, like in a separate thread " US in a wild tango with Taliban", so as to minimize the "loss" (or maximize the gain).

In an all too familiar demarche, US negotiators are already in talks with the Haqqani network, whom they had declared a terrorist org. last year, itself. Looks like they had a change of heart. This shows US (for all the right reasons) cares two hoots about engaging with terrorist organization, when it comes to saving their as**s, notwithstanding its stated policy of non-negotiation with terrorists.

Does not bode well for India. Expect India to be restricted to NA dominated areas (North & NW regions). Whatever limited presence India has in mainland areas, would be rolled back or blown up & we cannot do a thing about it. The reality of geographical limitation (not having a direct land border with Af-stan) would now be dawning upon our External Affairs Ministry, more than ever & their helplessness in this matter is already too evident.

Even puny Qatar is going to have more say than India in days to came, when it comes to the calling the shots in Af-stan (for Qatar is Taliban's bridge to civilized world).

As always, India is nowhere in the picture of these negotiations between different parties on power-sharing agreement in the aftermath of US withdrawal. Pak (read, Gen. Ashfaque Kayani) is running the show, all the way. The Paki dream of achieving strategic depth in Af-stan is not a distant dream, anymore. Instead, it is well within reach. The last surviving superpower has already been humbled. History repeated itself.

Experts who had been day-dreaming that Indian soft-power could make India a player worth reckoning in Af-stan, would now wake-up from from their slumber, when they realize that India counts little in the future of Af-stan. There is simply for India no way to overcome the geographical reality.

US token presence in Af-stan & ANA, would not be able to withstand Taliban factions long enough & Kabul would eventually fall. Expect a replay of 1996, with Haqqani & Hekmatyar (as usual) factions taking the lead. But it be a much slower campaign than 1996 because drone strikes would not allow the Taliban militia to re-group often, a pre-requsitive for sustained offensives, when aim is to capture Kabul.

Lesson is: There is no substitute for Hard-Power. Winning hearts-n-minds is just an icing on cake.

I will not take this lightly given the US Taliban talks and ISI dancing its way into Af

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We have 300000+ personnel in uniform, at least 10k of which are elite special forces and I would put them against any number of Taliban the ISI may wish to push into AFG. Most people forget that in its heyday, the vast fighting force of Taliban were actually plain-clothes PA soldiers, so that could be a bit of a problem. HOWEVER, the the main issue that will impede any significant Taliban military operations is the size of an attacking force in a particular battlefield. Put too few men and they will be quickly taken out, commit too many men and air power will wipe them out.

The biggest problem Afghanistan faces is not the will of its military, but a weak-ass political government headed by Karzai. It needs a strong leader.

May 23: The Tolonews website runs a story on its front page reporting about news of the death of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar in Kabul. The Afghan Taliban rejected as 'propaganda' on Monday unsourced media reports that their reclusive leader, Mullah Omar, had been killed in Pakistan, saying he was alive and in Afghanistan and vowing to continue their insurgency. (Reuters)
Mullah Omar, the elusive, one-eyed Taliban leader who has been in hiding with a price on his head since the U.S. ousted his regime in Afghanistan, recently told confidantes his group will retake Kabul â€œin a weekâ€ once America pulls out.
The seldom seen Taliban spiritual leader, of whom only one purported photograph exists, made the pledge at a recent meeting in the badlands of southwestern Pakistan, according to a source in regular contact with a member of Mullah Omarâ€™s government-in-exile, dubbed the Quetta Shura.
Mullah Omar, who escaped his homeland in 2001 on a motorcycle as U.S. forces moved in, spoke just days before President Obama announced the U.S. plans to engage the Taliban in peace talks. On the day of that announcement, the Taliban took credit for a bombing that killed four U.S. service members at Bagram Airfield, a U.S. military base in Afghanistan.
â€œ[Mullah Omar believes] the host of Americans are a worse enemy than Americans.â€
- Taliban militant privy to Mullah Omar's plans
It is unclear if Mullah Omar remains in charge of the full Taliban, or if the group made up of exiled members of the ruling class and jihadist fighters is splintered beyond control. The source who relayed Mullah Omarâ€™s statements to FoxNews.com said the leader disavows the talks with the U.S.
Neither Mullah Omarâ€™s pledge nor word of peace talks is likely to be welcome to Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Obama made the announcement at the Group 8 summit in Northern Ireland, where he called it â€œa very early stepâ€ toward the planned exit of U.S. troops by the end of 2014. The idea of Karzai and Mullah Omar co-existing in Afghanistan is inconceivable, according to the source, himself a Taliban militant.
â€œ[Mullah Omar believes] the host of Americans are a worse enemy than Americans,â€ said the militant.
If the U.S. is seeking to engage Taliban leaders loyal to Mullah Omar, the bone of contention could be that America has him on its most wanted list, with a bounty of $10 million on his head.
Tariq Fatemi, a former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. and a current adviser to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, said, â€œIsnâ€™t the U.S. willing to talk to the Taliban?â€ adding that he is â€œperplexedâ€ by the fact that Omar remains on Americaâ€™s hit list.
Mullah Omar, whose identity remains secretive despite his leadership role, rose to power after Afghanistan descended into chaos and civil war in the early 1990s. Seminary students armed and led by Omar fought against rampant corruption and crime, gaining the respect of Afghanistanâ€™s mujahedeen fighters.
He became the Talibanâ€™s de facto head of state in 1996, and remained there until U.S. and allied forces toppled his government in October 2001 for sheltering Usama Bin Laden following the 9/11 attacks.
He is believed to be in his 50s, and has been moving cautiously between Afghanistanâ€™s Spin Boldak district in Kandahar province and the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta in the impoverished region of Balochistan, where rebels, terrorists and refugees live together.
â€œHe is in good health and living a pious life being guarded by his trusted lieutenants,â€ said the militant who spoke to FoxNews.com.
Pakistanâ€™s foreign office in a press release welcomed the announcement of the Taliban opening an office and direct talks between U.S., and the militant group reiterating urgency to an early end to the war to re-establish peace and security. The country has been key in facilitating the negotiations by releasing detained Taliban commanders over the past several months and some, according to Pakistan officials, will be part of peace negotiations.
Pakistan, which has an uneasy alliance with the U.S., is holding at least two high-level Taliban leaders under arrest and denies the Quetta Shura is waiting out the Americans on its soil. But trust between the two nations over Pakistanâ€™s commitment to the U.S. war on terror has suffered since the 2011 raid that killed Al Qaeda boss Usama bin Laden in a compound in Abbottabad.
Fatemi just short of acknowledging Mullah Omarâ€™s presence in Pakistan said that even if he was, the U.S. would be wrong to move against him as it did Bin Laden.
â€œAre we going back to the law of the Jungle?â€ Fatemi said. â€œOnce you start breaking international law, you are setting a dangerous precedent.â€

that's I myself have predicted..... the chances are at least 50% that Afghanistan will be brought back to the state it had till 2002, once US withdraw its front line forces

and the worse, which we hope won't happen, that if we didn't read any new 9/11 type attack on US since 2001 then it was mainly because of their hold on the area from where that attack was originated, the Afghan. and after winning the war, with having better technologies now due to having close links with ISI too, (along with their CIA's links in Syria too,) Taliban/Al Qaeda may now be willing to take revenge for the way US/NATO fought war there, with more strength this time............

"losing a war has much more meaning than winning it." US is habituated of fighting wars one by one, if someone shows them eyes then they generally try to roll over that whole region.......... we hope we won't see any new 9/11 type thing on US and US/EU won't be able to go to Afghanistan this time, as per their current state of economy :ranger: